Multan Sultans up for auction? PCB invites bids ahead of PSL 2026

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has decided to put its franchise, Multan Sultans, up for auction ahead of the 11th season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which is set to begin on March 26. It tendered inviting bids for the franchise, which has been issued, with the interested parties asked to submit their proposals by the end of January.

The change of action from the board ends the brief notion of running Multan Sultans in-house this season, as the chairman, Mohsin Naqvi, expressed last. The reports have claimed that the proposal to auction the Sultans had the support of the senior officials of the board and the PSL.

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The tournament is understood to have buoyed by the high prices of the two new teams, Hyderabad and Sialkot, which were sold for a price of PKR 1.75 and PKR 1.85 billion, respectively. The sales took place at an auction, with the franchise fee nearly three times that of the Lahore Qalandars, the most valuable of the existing PSL teams.

PCB seeks bids for Multan Sultans’ auction before PSL 2026

Unlike the two new teams, Sultan is already an established PSL franchise and has taken part in eight seasons and won the title in 2021. However, the officials remain hopeful that the sale before the season would fetch the highest axing price of all. For the prime contenders, the eyes remain on the bidders for the other two teams in the bidding war.

Sultan’s previous owner, Ali Tareen, decided to walk away from the franchise at the end of last year, which resulted in the PCB’s search for the new buyer as Treen withdraw from the auction for one of the two new franchises as the last minute but promised to return when Sultans would be up for sale.  

The PSL has not yet announced a drop date for the squads, which can’t happen until Sultan’s new owner is in place. The addition of the two new teams has also led to disagreements around the process of how many players existing franchises should be able to retain ahead of the new season.